“Amer­i­cans’ obses­sion with well­ness is fuel­ing a new cat­e­go­ry of con­sumer elec­tron­ics, one that goes far beyond the ubiq­ui­tous Fit­bits and UP activ­i­ty wrist­bands that only pas­sive­ly mon­i­tor users’ phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. The lat­est wear­able tech, to put it in the sim­plest terms, is about hack­ing your brain.

These gad­gets claim to be able to make you have more willpow­er, think more cre­ative­ly and even jump higher…Lots of peo­ple and com­pa­nies are mak­ing invest­ments, too, from Sil­i­con Val­ley ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists to large phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies and even the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The com­pa­nies claim the stim­uli they uti­lize are so weak that the prod­ucts shouldn’t be con­sid­ered med­ical devices and sub­ject to reg­u­la­tion by the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion. To date, the agency hasn’t inter­vened.

All this has unnerved many neu­ro­science experts, who wor­ry about putting some­thing that tin­kers with the brain in the hands of naive con­sumer masses…Response from users has been mixed, with about two-thirds of online review­ers writ­ing about how hap­py they were with the prod­uct and about one-third say­ing they didn’t feel any effects at all.”

About SharpBrains

As seen in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC News, CNN, Reuters and more, SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science.